Woe is me.
Infertility is socially isolating. There. I said it. And now I come to find out
that on top of not being able to ovulate all by myself like a big girl and not
being able to really talk to anyone
about not being able to ovulate all by myself like a big girl, I also have to
learn a whole new language of inscrutable acronyms. TWW? OPK? BFP? And don’t
even get me started on “BD.” Seriously. Really. We’re all adults here.
For the
uninitiated still googling this bizarre pseudo-patois of dubious wordplay, let
me break the news to you:
TWW = two week
wait (the interminable wait, pre-pregnancy-test. during which time you might, hypothetically speaking, decide to start a blog. just an idea.)
OPK = ovulation
predictor kit (an overpriced box full of tiny strips that lie, and lie and
lie to you and say you never ovulated when you totally did a boisterous
early morning activity!)
BFP = big fat
positive (as in, the golden ticket. the not big, or fat, but tiny and small and
almost indiscernible, little pink line on the drugstore pregnancy test you
bought in a frenzy, along with Skittles you didn’t really want, but felt oddly
comforting, and a People Magazine that you so
did because honestly, what kind of person buys just a pregnancy test?)
And now, BD. I
can barely stand to type this. BD is (cringe) “baby dance.” BD is SEX. Straight
up. Sometimes my doctor calls it intercourse. Sometimes the nurse says “have
relations” (still cringing). I call
it sex. Superfluously not infrequently. As in, “So doc, when can I have
SEX?” and, to the nurse, who is looking unhinged because it clearly makes her
so uncomfortable when I utter such HEATHEN words “so, does that [test
result/FSH level/weather report] mean we can have SEX?” Because honestly. Baby
dance? If I am old enough to make the decision to voluntarily inject myself
with Chinese hamster ovaries (seriously though, I feel like an adult should
have signed off on that?), then I am totally old enough to say SEX in front of a
medical professional AND in a pseudo-anonymous online forum. Thankyouverymuch.
